8ren
Joined 16 years ago
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588
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164
Member since
Sep 29
Recent submissions
Comment · 16 years ago
I didn't see any ads, probably because of adblock. And given the nature of its conceit, I didn't expect an attribution. I just came across it and thought HN would appreciate it.
Comment · 16 years ago
vapor, where?
Comment · 16 years ago
aside: has anyone read a good discussion of Codd's original relational paper? http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.98.... Thanks!
I'm confused by his five example for "1.2.3. Access Path Dependence" (page.378), where an app would fail if the data representation changed, because I think an app using a relational store would also fail if the relations were organized differently. I can see some possible resolutions, but the paper doesn't address the issue...
I concede that it's hard to assess a proposed approach when it doesn't actually exist yet; but I think that if you raise an issue with the existing approaches in a paper, it's reasonable to also assess your own proposal with respect to that issue.
e.g. maybe he imagined automatic views to convert the underlying relations (so that different relations are identical if they represent the same information...); or a manual conversion layer with views (but the same could be done for the other store!); or maybe he was only thinking of different physical representations when he wrote that part and it didn't occur to him that different relations also might be used
EDIT http://www.aisintl.com/case/library/Date_Birth%20of%20the%20...
I think he's saying that while the relational model has the same problem of retaining compatibility for old apps when it evolves, it this is * easier * to do this with the relational model. ie. the "number of access paths" for old apps becomes "excessively large" for non-relational models. He talks a bit about the complexity of representing different queries later on, but somewhat obliquely and doesn't draw the connection (and I don't quite follow what he means in the second last paragraph of section 1.5, where he mentions n!, 2n-1 and n+1 - I understand it so little, that I think there might be a typo).
Ah! He seems to have addressed it more directly in a previous, less-cited IBM-only paper from 1969... to which I happen to have a link right here: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.173.5...
Comment · 16 years ago
No, just referencing a well-known event; but it seems you're right that he's not teaching that course any more http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=531490
However, he did say that starting off with python makes an undergraduate’s initial experiences maximally productive in the current environment. http://cemerick.com/2009/03/24/why-mit-now-uses-python-inste...
fun fact: norvig switched to python (for his textbook) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803815
It's horses for courses (or ophidia for courses in this case).
Comment · 16 years ago
I don't know if business people do a lot of scripting (if any) in spreadsheets, because it side-steps the ease-of-use GUI of spreadsheet in favour of a programmer's UI...
Comment · 16 years ago
Is it really true that business people use R directly? Being in Forbes is consistent with it...
I recall that SQL was intended to be used by business people... and it probably has been, sometimes; but I don't think it happens much. The days of early adoption might have differed, through appealing to the more adventurous business people (as R might be now).
One thing I know for a fact: business people use spreadsheets. I think making something that easy to get things done in is an incredible achievement. As an example, I think PHP has approached but not attained it.
Comment · 16 years ago
Language you think in is constraining... unless your language is the best that could ever exist. Of course, if you can only think in it, you couldn't imagine anything better.
Mathematical notation might be a better language to think in than any programming language; but even that is constraining - since mathematicians are constantly inventing new notation, and many mathematicians think in pictures or even... intuition.
Of course, he really meant for coding; I just wanted to note the bigger picture.
Comment · 16 years ago
And Sussman switched to python. Religious wars are for followers, not Creators.
Comment · 16 years ago
I've started trying to narrow the scope of features required for launch, where the minimum set of features is not with respect to the full set I want, nor with what customers might need, nor what will differentiate me from competitors - but the minimum set that would make it have some use, to some customers.
It doesn't matter if other products are more useful; nor if that minimum set expresses the really cool goal I have, or the essence of my approach. Just that it be some use to some one.
I think of this a little bit like a strategy for proving theorems: if you haven't got time to prove the thing you are aiming at, but you need to publish something, you can always restrict your assumptions and goal to what you can manage, and prove that. Now you have a base you can build on.
everything > something; but something > nothing
Comment · 16 years ago
That link suggests "the beginning of the end" is from Shakespeare - do you know which work? I only know it from Churchill, and assumed it was his.
Comment · 16 years ago
9. prozvonit is to prank, in slang I've heard & used here in Australia.
bonus: tingo - "to borrow things from a friend's house, one by one, until there is nothing left" in Pascuense language of Easter Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Jacot_de_Boinod#Career
Comment · 16 years ago
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!